Without You
by cltaylor
Summary: Steph wakes up one morning to find Ranger gone.


_**Without You  
**Author: Christie_

**_Disclaimer: Janet Evanovich owns a lot of stuff, including Ranger. A tragedy really. _**

**_Warnings: Angst _**

**_Rating: NC-17. Smut and Angst, my two favorite things._**

**_A/N: I was trying to remember if anyone had used this title and couldn't. Pardon my oversight if you have._**

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**I **knew this day would come but it still didn't soften the blow. 

I woke up this morning knowing something was wrong. That something was about to be missing from my life and here it was. Spoken softly around me, with sad glances my way and whispers of what I might do. But I couldn't think past "I'm sorry. We did everything we could." speech. I stood there, nodding my head, but I didn't hear them. I didn't nod my head or speak when the officer came in to hug me. I didn't smile when someone said they loved me and he had loved me as well. I didn't shed a tear when they said he was never going to walk through that door again. I just stood there. I didn't do anything.

I sat down, afraid that my knees would buckle and stared at the grooves in the tabletop.

I closed my eyes.

_Take this away._

_Oh God. Please take this away._

I was in pain. Physical pain, bleeding my soul into tears that wouldn't fall. My breath was frozen in my lungs, the words choked up behind the softball sized knot in my throat. I never thought I'd feel this way. But I should've known better.

I loved him and he didn't know.

I loved him and now he's gone.

And as suddenly as I realized that, the tears that had pooled began to fall, fall like the rain against the window panes. I took a breath as though I had been drowning and starving for air, and a sob followed, followed by another one echoing the heart-wrenching hole in my heart. I couldn't hold it back anymore. I covered my face with my hands and sobbed to my only support system, myself, and tried to let it all go. Make it all go away, but the more I cried the more it hurt. I didn't want to hurt anymore.

"How could you take him away from me?" I cried out, "Give him back to me! Give him back! I loved him! I loved him and now he is gone!" I sobbed, leaning my head on the table, "And now he's gone." I whispered to no one but myself.

I didn't want to let him go. I couldn't let him go. I needed him as he needed me. It took me a long time to realize that and come to terms with it, but we had made a life together. We trusted one another. And someone took that away from me.

My heart clutched and I stumbled. I would never see his face again. He would never smile at me with the dimples flashing in mischief. He would never lean against the door frame and ask me if I had anything to tell him. He wouldn't tease me again. He would never touch me…

I stood up determined to make it into the shower where no one else could hear me.

I stumbled into the shower, turning it on only by habit and climbed in. My clothes clung to me, soaking me to the core. I remembered the last time we had been in the shower together. It had only been 12 hours ago. He had stripped off my t-shirt (it had been one of his) and tossed it on the floor, his lips quickly covering mine, making easy work of my panties. His hands were cold, giving me a pleasant thrill as they touched the bare skin of my rounded ass, sliding down and cupping me, pulling me against him tight. His body unyielding to me, and I clung to him as though I would never again.

_And I wouldn't._

He had only pulled away from me long enough to turn the shower on.

"_I need to take a shower and then we can go to bed."_

"_Then let me help you," I had moaned to him, "If I help, you'll come to bed twice as fast." _

His eyed had darkened with unspent desire and he reached for my hand, pulling me into him. He stared down into my eyes, reading me as though I was a book written for him and him alone and I gazed up at him, memorizing each worry line, the way his lips would twitch when he wanted to smile but was trying not to, the ways his eyes darkened when I licked my lips and the way his voice sounded when he murmured my name. I could still remember how his body had felt against my own-- hard, strong, rippling with power. And the way I felt when I was in his arms. I felt safe. I felt loved and I felt like nothing would ever come between us.

_But it had._

The steam from the shower had filled the room, and it was like fog on a very humid night. I peeled his shirt off him, my lips tracing up his abs, around his pecs, and upward as I revealed more and more, until I could reach any further and he took the shirt out of my hands, dropping it on top of my own. His pants were the next thing to go, kicking out of them in record time and he stood there in front of me in all his glory. It was a sight that even the angels would sigh over.

He threaded his hands into my hair and tipped my head back. His lips crashed down over my own, his tongue flicking out over my bottom lip seeking entrance and getting it when I gasped in pleasure. His hands slid down my back and over the cheeks of my ass, lifting me off the ground and firmly into him. There was no air between us, we were fitted inch for inch, skin touching skin. He was hard and thick against me, straining between us and ready for action and I couldn't say as though I wasn't either. I was ready when I first laid eyes on him when he walked through the door.

I pushed him back into the shower and as soon as the water hit us, it just fueled the fire within. I had him against the back wall of the shower, plastering my body against his, rubbing against him, sucking and licking and tasting every inch of him, working my way down until I could run my tongue the length of him, my finger tips tracing along the underneath with a feathery touch until I thought I had tortured him long enough and I sucked him into my mouth, keeping the pace slow and controlled, waiting for the moment he would lose his composer and thread his fingers into my hair so that he could grab a fistful and take over. But he never got rough.

His hand went into my hair to lift me away from him, pulling me against him and lowering his mouth to the soft spot right underneath my ear, his lips applying pressure and his tongue reminding me of the wicked things he could do with his mouth when he was going down on me. His mouth was torturing me, sliding up to graze his teeth along my earlobe and scraping down until he gently bit my shoulder, laving it with his mouth until I was pushing against him, so wet that I was dying to have him inside of me, waiting for him to possess me and show me the heaven I found when I was with him. But he took his time, his fingertips trailing over my skin, down between my breasts, his trimmed fingernails tracing over my nipples making them hard enough to cut glass and they still slid further down. His other hand coming up and threading into my hairline near my ear, tilting my head so that he would have easier access to my neck but it didn't distract from where his other hand was leading him.

His finger traced along the outside, gently sliding against my clit, flicking it with rough fingers and my heartbeat picked up a beat. My pulse was racing, and even as I begged him to touch me, to end my suffering, but still he teased.

"_You're wet,"_ he murmured in my ear as his finger dipped against me, the tip just barely pushing into me and my hips flexed, "_Are you wet for me or is that just the shower?"_

I moaned when another inch slipped inside of me and he pressed me firmly against the granite, "_Tell me, babe. Tell me what I want to hear."_ His lips and tongue traced against my jaw bone and made there way to my lips but when I leaned down to take his lips against my own, he allowed his lips brushed against my own just barely for a second as he withdrew his finger and I cried out.

"_Yes… Please. I am."_ I gasped, "_I'm wet for you, just please stop torturing me. I want you inside of me, so deep that I don't know where I end and you begin. Please…" _I raked my fingernails down his back and cupped his firm ass in my hands. "_Fuck me," _I whispered on his lips and his finger pushed back into me, and I urged him on, sliding my leg up so that he would have better access, "_Mmmm, yes."_ I moaned as he touched my clit with the pad of his thumb. "_More."_

His lips ravaged mine, his tongue pushing, stroking, reminding me of how he was going to feel once he was inside of me. The stroke matching the pace of his finger until I felt myself tightening against him and I was desperately pushing towards the edge of orgasm. He seemed to sense it just as I was about to ride it, withdrawing his finger from me and sliding home with a sure push of his hips. I gasped and cried out at the same time, arching against him in orgasm as he held his hips in place. He slid his hand along the underside of my thigh and held my leg against his hip, angling my hips to his, lifting me until I could barely touch the shower floor. And when my breathing returned to semi-normal and I opened my eyes to see his fixed on me, I lost my breath, my lips parted and my eyes fluttered so that I was looking at him through lowered lashes. His eyes were dark, dark as night with passion and intense. The first thrust of his hips was shocking, a sure stroke, pushing full hilt and holding there. I ground my hips into his own, unable to control myself, wanting more but bordering on the painful pleasure aspect already. He brought his lips back down to my own and started to move, slowly and then more controlled, rolling his hips like an erotic dance that only we could dance to. I pushed down onto him hard and he nipped my lip, sucking it into his mouth and used it to torture me until I was gasping for air, begging with my hips for another orgasm.

It hit me unexpectantly, as I arched and went into a slow grind, my body under his control and working him like a pole. And then another one, just shortly after when his fingers tweaked my nipples without any mercy, and another one as he pushed against my G-spot.

"_Come,"_ I demanded of him, gasping for air, "_Have mercy on me, and come."_

I'd never seen that look on his face before, and I didn't think I'd ever forget it as well. Especially not now. Lust in it's most carnal form, filled his eyes, and I rode the last one out with him, crying out his name, gasping for release and he finally gave it to me with one final thrust. And he was still thrusting until we were both spent, unable to say another word, unable to move another muscle. I'd never known what sated actually was until that moment, and it only lasted a second until I realized I would never get enough of him.

_And now I would never be with him ever again. I didn't know if I could live with that._

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